Beyond The Styx: Leviathanima

French hardcore mob fail to quite hit the target

You can’t knock the conviction with which five-piece Gallic mob Beyond The Styx have attacked their debut full-length, Leviathanima, and it is obvious that they’ve put all they have into this outing of polished modern hardcore.

Yet, despite throwing everything from their musical arsenal into the mix – from grinding deathcore through to quiet acoustic interludes, chanting gang vocals and licks that come straight from the Gojira playbook – the end product is wanting.

Perhaps it’s down to the over-reliance on the soon-to-become-all-too-familiar staccato, stutter-gun style of guitar riffing that, despite everything else going on around it, means that after a few tracks you find one song indistinguishable from another. Or perhaps it’s the lack of any real bite or power behind the dual scream/death growl vocals of Emile Styx that lets it down.

Either way, it’s a shame, because there is still plenty to enjoy in tracks such as Code: orphan†age and SanctuarINK, and live these new tracks will no doubt be whipping up pits with ease./o:p

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